The mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were unveiled today. Quatchi is a sasquatch. Miga is a, um, sea bear (according to the Olympics site, "the sea bear is inspired by the legends of the Pacific Northwest First Nations, tales of orca whales that transform into bears when they arrive on land.") Sumi is all over the place: thunderbird wings, bear legs, orca hat - representing the theme of transformation. You can get the low down on the mascots' site.

Boy, for a bunch of cute little cartoon characters, they sure evoke a lot of negative reactions.

Juding by the reactions of people around me at work today, and from reading a little online, lots of people immediately took issue with the mascots. The comments I heard ranged from "too cutesy" to "too anime" to "not 'Canadian' enough" to "confusing" to plain old "ugly". I even heard one count of "hideous".

Personally, I like them. I do find the combo creatures a bit odd (couldn't they just pick, say an orca, without mixing it with a bear?), but I love the fact that there's a sasquatch in the gang. I admit that I do have a bias for sasquatch in pretty much ANY context though. ("Hey, is that a sasquatch in your annual report? Awesome! Very professional.")

The new mascots were made by Meomi, a Vancouver/LA duo who do a lot of character design and recently created the ultra-cute-tastic picture book, The Octonauts.

What do you think about the new mascots? Yay or nay? Hot or not? Better or worse than previous Olympic mascots?

All yay. I think they're really cute, especially Sumi's hat, and if Miga were all orca, he/she might be kind of bummed about the lack of water sports at the Winter Olympics! I think they're a cut above of recent years' mascots. Holy half-assed Torino.